What is voltage?

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I’ve heard the definitions of it being “energy transferred per charge”, “potential difference”, and “the difference between the electrons in the positive and negative terminals of a battery” but I still don’t really understand some of these definitions, and can’t really wrap my head around what exactly is it.

I also don’t really get how it is the thing that can “power up” a circuit (I might have misunderstood this part” and how the definitions above can be the same thing

In: Physics

9 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Voltage is difference in charge between any two points. If one point is super positive and the other is super negative, and you connect them with a wire, then electrons are going to want to go from negative to positive. That’s basically it.

Voltage is related to amps because amps is how fast electrons move. A higher voltage = more charge difference = that electrons are going to move faster = more amps.

You don’t even need a wire for this to work. Wires are just nice because electrons move relatively freely in a metal. But if you have two points that have a big enough charge difference between them, electrons will travel from one side to the other. That’s what happens with lightning, or a static shock.

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